SIMPLE, BUT NOT ALWAYS EASY
Romans 13:7 Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue. Jesus stated it clearly: “You cannot serve both God and Money” (Luke 16:13). Yet too many people try.
Someone wrote to me about money he had made selling some items for cash. He didn’t see any reason “to tell the government about it”–but his wife disagreed, and so did I.
First, cheating of any kind will always keep you wondering if you’ll be discovered. Second, you won’t like to feeling that comes with knowing you lack integrity and are dishonest.
But there is a deeper reason: As the verse above indicates, if we cheat, we are disobeying God. In His eyes, failing to pay the taxes we owe is little different from stealing from an individual. Furthermore, if we fail to pay the taxes we owe, honest citizens will have to make up the shortfall.
If cheating of any kind enters our mind, we need to ask ourselves why we would even consider it. Is money too important to us? If greed ruling us? Whatever it is, confess it and put Christ first in your life.
Michael & Alison Smitherman
The Singing NetSurfers
How much is our self respect and honor worth? Would we cheat for $5…for five million? Our integrity and self worth are more valuable than anything physical, including our health. Without the peace that comes with integrity and self respect, we can’t truly enjoy anything, except in harmful ways. Even worse, we are left to fend for ourselves because cheating keeps us from receiving God’s love and protection. Note that I did not say it keeps God from loving us. Nothing can cause God to abandon us.
We cut ourselves off from God because we are not following his will and his way. We chose our own way, and then lose sight of God’s way. So long as our cheating is unconfessed, unforgiven and unrepented, we will fall victim to the illusion of separation from God. Just as the prodigal son put himself into the wilderness, just as Adam and Eve caused their ejection from Eden, we deny ourselves paradise by choosing to cheat.
So today, let us face ourselves, confess our cheating of all kinds, repent and ask forgiveness. Whatever we forego by not cheating, we assure ourselves beyond measure in peace, dignity and integrity. Eden awaits.
Cheating greed,
Z gardener
Good Morning Garden 
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